


Pathological Fractals

by shatterdoom



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-10-20 08:01:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20671973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatterdoom/pseuds/shatterdoom
Summary: After the apocalypse is averted, Newton leaves. Hermann finds him.





	Pathological Fractals

Newton is in a motel room. In a bathtub. Filled with water. With his clothes on. Because if he is to open a portal (just a small one, a totally inconsequential one) to another dimension so he can—for the third time—neurobiologically connect with a hostile, alien hive mind, he’s not going to do it butt ass naked. Alright. He has standards. He has a threshold of coolness he’d like to keep within range of (this isn’t to say coolness is a state far above his baseline, okay, it’s not, he is the metric by which all coolness not only adheres to but aspires to). Also, because Hermann’s here. Observing. The way Hermann always observes Newton. You know, hovering over him like some prudish owl.

Right now, Hermann is doing that from the toilet seat, lid down, with his legs crossed, and let’s just say, the surrounding environment in which they are currently in (i.e. the bathroom) is not doing Hermann’s whole pensive-scrunched-scowl look any service, contextually speaking.

He looks constipated.

And it’s kind of hilarious. And distracting. 

Anyway. Nudity is a no-go. Is the point. Is almost always the point in almost all matters, really, if you think about it.

Newton puts his make-shift neural bridge headpiece on. It looks like garbage because that’s what it was made from. It’s a modified version of his first model. It does still vaguely hold the appearance of a huge alienoid hand clenching the top of his head. Now, there’s a lot to unpack there in the possible subconscious design influences (his decades worth of disregarding function for form (see: Hermann’s three filed complaints regarding Newton’s lack of sleeves on his lab coats for a more rudimentary example)) and/or foreboding visual metaphor, but Newton does not do any such unpacking. Newton does not do unpacking. His mind is a clutter of undealt with trauma and nerves. And there may be something stuck in it because of it, he thinks?

It’s been over a month since he (and Hermnan) mentally tangoed with a kaiju. And they’ve stayed with him. Literally. But not wholly. Like, a copy of a copy. Right, like, you know an echo? Echoes outlive their sound source, they’re the formless reflection of something already gone. And echoes, they’re short, they’re fast, they only last seconds and that’s it. Except that’s not it. This echo’s lasted days. Or, possible correction: weeks, months? Note to self: look at a calendar or a watch, would you. Think about that. It could be self sustaining. An echo of an echo of an echo. Until it’s some mutilated version of itself. And by that point, well, you, you want the source again. Because it’s so clear and clean. And he does: Newton does want the source again, wants it clear. Wants this litany of fragmented urges and feelings and thoughts to stop. To quiet. Or to re-synchronize. He feels as full as a brass bell (his left hand is shaking like one), the instinctive fragments of some otherworldly creature ringing in him like a dirge over a dirge over a dirge. Sounds morbid, right? Try having to feel it. Constantly. Indeterminably.

And sometimes, he can’t tell if it’s all echoes or if some of it—them, the kaiju, the hive mind—is still in him, somehow. Like, _ in there _. Because sometimes it feels so real, so there. Present, you know. In things like coffee swirls.

There are moments when he finds his mind gets locked into a sequence of behaviors he’s unable to break. Like his brain isn’t his own, or like commands have been input into it temporarily overriding his own neurobiological bases. He had to stop stirring coffee because of it. The cyclical rotation would form a small vortex in the black liquid and he could feel his arms pushing downwards (in a flap-like manner), stuck in some strict, rigid motion he did not remember thinking to do and could not cease from occurring, no matter how loudly he rebelled within the disarray of his mind. It stopped when the coffee stopped swirling. Every time.

So, he’s already decided. Newton is going to open a micro-portal to the kaiju’s dimension and is either going to get answers, reestablish synchronicity, or die, maybe. And two out of three good outcomes is not the worst odds. A solid sixty-six point six recurring percent. Totally makes it worth it. Right?

Newton drums his fingers against the neural bridge battery switch, trying to still his hands by using them. He assesses the micro-portal conductor rung around him in the water like a metal inner tube. He takes a deep breath in. He looks at Hermann who is looking at him. Newton, skittish and quick:

“I can’t do this while you’re watching. It’s weird. And you look constipated. You know you look constipated, right? You gotta know. Wait. Are you constipated? I can leave.”

Hermann’s jaw shifts out like a tectonic plate. That slow, that devastating. He will not dignify the latter half of that paroxysm of anxiety with a response. It’s obvious Newton is nervous. This is how Newton is when he’s nervous: he lashes out through immature remarks utterly saturated with teenage colloquialisms, he stalls.

Hermann, slowly, sternly:

“The last time I left you alone with neural bridge technology, Newton, you nearly killed yourself.”

“Hermann, I am the world’s leading biologist on human-kaiju drifting. I don’t need a babysitter.”

Newton can practically _ hear _ Hermann in his head saying _ you are the world’s _ only _ kaiju biologist, you idiot _ . He wants to say _ shut up, Hermann _. And he could. He totally, rightfully could. But Hermann’s not saying anything. He’s sitting there. Sighing. Huffing air out of his nose like he thinks he’s a steam iron while Newton thinks he can feel traces of Hermann’s neural pathways still overlaying his own, like a cobweb wrapped around his brain (like a whole, new extra layer of gray matter) like some kind of residual neural bridge connection. It’s no big deal. That’s not the problem right now. I mean, it is, it is a problem (a highly annoying, kind of thrilling, kind of hot problem), but he’s got another, more present problem. Which is the kaiju that may or may not be inside him. Mentally speaking.

“You are the world’s _ only _ human-kaiju drift biologist. Everyone else has the good sense not to drift with a malicious life form.”

Fuck. It’s a problem.

“Yeah, well, Marie Curie didn’t discover X-rays without taking a few risks.”

Not his best riposte. She died.

“The radioactivity killed her, Newton.”

_ Fuck_.

“Yeah, bad choice. But, you know, X-rays may not even exist in their dimension, for all we know, so, uh, I’m fine, I’m great, I’m doing this.”

Newton straightens his shoulders, readying himself.

Hermann rolls his eyes.

“You will not do this. You will die. It would half our funding.”

Newton throws the battery switch. 

“Okay _ what? _”

It clangs against the tile floor and rolls next to the plunger.

“Hold on. Right, like, how do we still _ have _ that? Also, jobs? Us being employed was sort of contingent on the world ending. And now it’s not. Or, at least, not imminently. And not kaiju related.”

“I submitted a grant proposal.”

“What?! Why the hell am I sitting in a bathtub jerry rigged into a portal conductor if we have money?”

“Because, shortly after averting the apocalypse, you left and sequestered yourself inside a cheap motel for three months.”

“Three months?!”

“Do you not own a watch?”

“I don’t know, dude. I think my internal clock is kind of broken? Or _ gone_? Or, or turned into something else? Do you, you don't, don't you feel that?”

Hermann purses his lips tightly, his eyes squinting.

“You do realize that thing on your head would electrocute you were you to turn it on?”

Hermann prods the headpiece with the end of his cane, Newton’s head bobs back with the force. A spark pops.

“Have you tested it yet? One singular time?"


End file.
